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10 thoughts on “Igniting Change from the Middle”

Dear Dan,
It is good concept for fearful top and passionate middle. It will lead to eventually passionate top in long run. And organizations will be effective in creating passionate middle or passionate all level leaders. However, to follow the path is full of risk, courage and obstacles. When top management is fearful, it will obstruct and do everything to instil fear into the system. And anyone showing passion might be treated a challenge or threat to top management. So, in such situations, it is very difficult to follow the path. It takes a sense of integrity, belief, and strong will power. Passionate middle can ignite fire by performance. When they perform, fearful top has to accept it sooner or later. And by doing this, passionate middle can influence fearful top.
Passionate middle should make more communication and interaction with fearful top. This will provide edge to understand top management feelings about fear. And passionate middle can create a culture of confidence. The perhaps most important component of fearful top, is lack of confidence and trust in people. So, creating trust and confidence by middle level could be encouraging.

You addressed a topic which is seldom spoken of in an elegant way. Thank you.
Most leadership tomes cater to senior managers with wide organizational freedom, and a very few to followers. There are only 7 book titles on Amazon that deal with leading from the middle, yet almost all leaders report to someone and need to lead both up and down.
Your statement “the fearful top are followers” is powerful. It is our duty as leaders to remove fear, both up and down the organizational chain. As leaders from the middle, we need to think about how to derisk change initiatives, and present them in a way that makes the uncertain future after change worth the risk and effort of making the change rather than accepting a status quo.
The key to leading upwards is credibility and integrity. Nothing “sells” a project to a boss like well-earned trust. The biblical Nehemiah, for example, managed to ask for an extended leave of absence, ask to rebuild the walls of a rebellious city, and get materials from the king to help him with his project.

And, actually, this is the REALITY of most change in my experience. Some middle level action-oriented middle-manager gets up to his trigger level and finally gets something going. Unbeknownst to the top managers (they ARE pretty isolated and out of touch with organizational reality in many cases), that manager has enough gall and gumption (and often a long history of similar successes) to “Just Do It!” The report the results / impacts as fait accomplie.

In a lot of cases, getting approval for moderate changes is no big deal. And one needs to have one’s act together to propose it, often with a needs analysis, impact analysis and risk analysis in hand.

Sometimes, one can drive things off an organizational survey of some kind, where the numbers show some need and one goes for it.

AND, a lot of the reality of change in the workplace is never even notices at the top. Those people sometimes really just don’t care about anything but the numbers.

In other alternate universes, the micro-managing, squawking numbers people simply allow NOTHING to change. Or there are politics.

YEARS ago, I was this newbie outside consultant for an organization where a Most Senior Corporate guy wanted some improvements to operations and the plant manager said he would go along. We implemented 20 or 30 little projects that impacted nearly everything in the plant and morale and numbers improved dramatically. But Frank kept saying to me, “I’m the best plant manager in our company and have been for 20 years” — guess he was, actually — and I never really understood that he felt I was making him look bad. When I left, he let everything die. Over $250,000 profit a quarter in a non-profitable company. (They sold out all the plants two years later!)

It’s all about perceived risk and organizational learning. If you KNOW that change is not allowed, CHANGE. Not the company, change companies!

“Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and just annoys the pig!”

Dan, I like the approach of igniting by start doing it (in stead of talking about it) and giving the example as a middle manager. Being an example works in two way: Your employees see that you are serious about changing (“doing thing tell more then telling them”) and you will get a much better understanding what the change means and what is needed to change by experiencing it yourself (“eat your own dogfood”).

But the main thing to be aware of, as you mention already is fear. I’ve seen middle managers who fear that their bosses will not like what they do. They fear that their might lose their job. Or they fear that their employees won’t like it, they are afraid that they won’t have enough power or means to get the change done. Being in the middle makes life hard, and change can be a risky thing to do. The thought alone block many managers in starting change.

Many middel managers that I have spoken with really want to ignite the fire of change, some actually succeed in it. My question: What can organizations do to drive out fear, and enable managers to startst changing things, resulting in an organization that becomes more adaptable?

Great subject. I’m wondering what your thoughts on organizational changes that have the ability to remove barriers permanently. Barriers so often seem to outlast the cowboys that find temporary freedom from them.

I of course love this because it follows my work life mantra of always asking for forgiveness instead of permission. Currently I work for a great organization where I am rarely asking for either – instead brainstorming with others about any idea and how to make it work.

Previously however, #2 “Don’t ask do. Push the edges of your authority and responsibility. Don’t wait for permission.” was quite literally a way of life.

I have found though that it sets you up well. I have always experienced that by doing this, I rarely had to ask for forgiveness because leadership ultimately did like the successes that followed. It allowed me to learn, to grow relationships, to experience things my job title didn’t allow, and then to have the necessary skills and relationships that moved me on toward bigger and better.

Good post, Dan. It surely strikes at the heart of the common experience. We definitely need those of us in the middle to keep up the good fight and, yet, I am also with Scott on “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and just annoys the pig!”.

For me, there has to be a balance. Your point on the Right Leaders is key “Spend time with those passionate about change. Stop focusing on foot draggers.”

When I can spend 50% of my time at this work then I can believe that there is hope for momentum to make both a short term and long term difference. When I can’t then I am changing companies.

In organizations where such resources come under a support function such as a PMO or HR, that leader needs to consider change agents as assets to be deployed judiciously. That means that if a sponsor is not using the agent appropriately then they lose him/her. That sends a message, doesn’t it?

This talent is highly valuable. Don’t become a victim of a system that does not appreciate what you do. Stockholm syndrome is not all it’s cracked up to be. Go where you can make a difference. – especially now when demand is higher.